


Assets and Debts

by MsBarrows



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Thor: The Dark World - Fandom
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Family, Flashbacks, Identity Porn, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Loki Mindfuckery, Memory Alteration, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Secret Identity, Single POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 10:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5123723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBarrows/pseuds/MsBarrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint loves his life; he has a great job, a wonderful wife, a loving family. Everything he'd always wished for.</p><p>But... you know what they say about wishes, don't you?</p><p>
  <img/>
</p><p>Art by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Knowmefirst/pseuds/Knowmefirst">Knowmefirst</a> can be found <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/collections/marvel_bang_2015/works/5120633">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assets and Debts

It had been a while since he’d last visited the farm. Clint drove in from Chicago, napping in the (rented) truck at a scenic lookout when he got too tired to continue. He woke while it was still dark out, and after checking the time figured if he gave up on further sleep, he could probably make it to the farm in time for breakfast. It was a cheering thought, and made resuming the drive easier.

The sun was just rising over the trees as he turned off the two lane highway on to the rutted gravel drive leading to the farm. It looked like something out of a photography exhibit; the back-lit trees, slanting sunbeams, everything misty and grey as the late spring frost was being burnt off by the rising sun. Surreal, especially when he spotted something big and almost mist-coloured moving in a field that should be empty. He blinked, his tiredness or the shadows and sunbeams momentarily making it seem as if whatever it was had more than just four legs. But no, it was just a big dappled grey horse, the only unusual thing about it being its presence here on his farm; last he’d heard they didn’t have any horses.

As he rolled to a stop near the house, Laura came out onto the porch, the screen door slapping shut behind her. She had her hands stuffed into the pockets of the old, stretched-out, fuzzy dark green cardigan that she preferred to wear as a housecoat, her long dark hair spilling unbound down her back, a welcoming smile on her face.

“Hi honey, I’m home!” he announced with a cheerful grin as he slid down out of the truck cab.

“So I see,” Laura responded calmly, moving to stand on the bottom step, which put her at just the right height for a welcoming kiss. “How long can you stay this time?”

“Just three days, then I’m supposed to hook up with Nat for another overseas mission.”

Laura wrinkled her nose at that; not because of Natasha, whom she liked very much, but because he’d be there for such a short time. “Go wash up,” she told him. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”

He kissed her again, just because he could, then back-tracked to the truck for long enough to grab his go bag from behind the seat before heading indoors. He could hear his daughter’s voice coming from the kitchen, where she was helping her mother to set the table. It brought a smile to his face as he took the stairs up to the second floor two at a time. He dropped his bag on the floor of their room to deal with later, dug a change of clothes out of the big old antique chest-of-drawers that they had bought together at an auction two towns over when they first moved in here, and ducked into the washroom just long enough for a quick ‘shit, shower, and shave’, as his father used to put it.

By the time he returned downstairs, the house smelled like pancakes and bacon, and the sound of morning cartoons was coming from the front parlour. “Do I get a kiss?” he asked as he stood leaning against one side of the doorway, smiling warmly at his daughter.

“Papa!” Lila shouted, jumping to her feet to run over and throw her arms around his waist.

Clint grinned and hoisted her up into a tight hug. “How’s my favourite little hellion?” he asked her, before kissing her cheek.

She scrunched her face up in disapproval. “I’m not a hellion,” she said indignantly.

“Yes you are, you’re my Lila Hellion Barton.”

“It’s _Helen_ , not hellion!”

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to…”

“Moooooom, dad is calling me names again!” she complained, wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug even as she twisted around to look over her shoulder toward the kitchen.

Laura appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dish towel, a faint smile on her own face. “Stop teasing our daughter and go wake up Cooper. Lila, please wash your hands and come to the table.”

“Yes ma’am,” Clint said as he set Lila back down, throwing a lazy salute-like gesture in Laura’s direction that earned him a fond eye-roll before she turned away and vanished back into the kitchen.

It didn’t take long to find Cooper, still asleep and all curled up in a nest of his blankets like a cat or dog. He grumbled and growled at being disturbed, then snapped awake as soon as he realized it was his father doing the waking. “Dad!” he yelped, with just as much enthusiasm as Lila had shown, and bounced around until Clint bent down to be the recipient of a hug and a rather wet kiss on the cheek.

“Eww, boy slobber,” Clint complained as he dried off his cheek against the shoulder of his shirt. “I swear you sometimes drool worse than the dog does. Go get cleaned up, breakfast is already on the table. There’s bacon.”

“Awesome!” Cooper exclaimed, then bounced off his bed and raced off towards the bathroom, undoubtedly planning to do the bare minimum of cleaning up that he could get away with without being sent back to try again. Clint took a moment to set out clean clothes for him before heading back downstairs, one of those little fatherly things that he so rarely was on hand to do.

He was glad to be home again, even if it was only for a few days. He loved his job, especially since it had been expanded from secretive assassin to being a member of the Avengers, but being away from Laura and the kids so much of the time was one of the unavoidable costs of the job. He was just thankful that he’d married such a strong-willed and independent woman, someone who accepted his irregular and often lengthy absences without resentment. Who, if anything, thrived on their odd and intermittent relationship, always happy to see him home, who never seemed to resent the time he had to spend away from their home.

Clint dropped into his chair beside Laura, dragging it and his place-setting closer to her so that he could drape one arm along the back of her chair, and ate his own meal one-handed. Lila was already halfway through her breakfast by the time Cooper came scrambling down the stairs, in a mad dash that would worry Clint more if the boy wasn’t so sure-footed; thankfully he’d inherited Laura’s gracefulness and wasn’t the accident-prone klutz that Clint remembered himself being at the same age.

He ate silently, smiling a lot as he listened to his wife and kids planning out their day; Laura wanted to make a grocery run to the Costco in town, Lila wanted to come with so that she could get some new clothes – she was shooting up like a weed and all her jeans were showing enough ankle to look more like capris or clamdiggers, not to mention how rapidly her arms were outgrowing anything she owned that was long-sleeved. Cooper planned to remain home, and do some of the chores that would earn him extra allowance. He was saving up for something, though he refused to say just what. Clint trusted that Laura would figure out what it was and make sure it wasn’t something too dangerous. Or illegal.

Clint voted to stay home as well; he didn’t make it out here often enough, and the list of things Laura’s left aside for him to take care of (or hire someone to do if he couldn’t) was getting lengthy again. Laura smiled warmly at him and brushed a kiss over his cheek as she rose, topping up his coffee before clearing away their plates.

Laura disappeared upstairs to change into something nicer to wear into town. Clint and the kids went outside and played a game of monster, the kids edging closer to him awhile he sat quietly on the porch stairs, and then shrieking and running away when he’d suddenly rise and lunge at them, growling or roaring while making clawed hands at them, before dropping down to sit again, laughing at their panicked antics. He found himself feeling a little sad when he thought about how quickly they were growing up, and that by the next time he made it home for any length of time they might consider themselves too grown up to play such a simple game any more. He sipped at the dregs of his cooling coffee, watching them nerve themselves up to sneak closer again, clinging to each other in mutual support while giggling excitedly.

The door opened behind him, Laura coming out onto the porch. “Time to go, Lila,” she called, and Lila immediately abandoned their game, racing off towards her mother’s car. Laura ran her hand along Clint’s shoulders as she walked down the stairs, then bent down to exchange a brief kiss with him.

“Should I plan to make something for supper?” Clint asked as she straightened up, smiling warmly at her.

Laura wrinkled her nose at him, smile lines appearing faintly around her mouth, at the corners of her eyes. “Just take care of lunch for yourself and Cooper,” she told him. “We shouldn’t be away all that long.”

Clint nodded, and watched her walk away to join Lila in the car, admiring her tall, slender form, the sway of her hips. Cooper moved to stand near the porch stairs, the two of them watching the girls back out into the drive, both of them waving as Laura drove off, Lila waving back to them out the open window. Clint caught a glimpse of the grey horse in the distance, raising its head to watch the car go by the pasture.

“So when did we get a horse?” Clint asked.

Cooper turned to him with a wide grin, squinting a little as he faced into the sunlight, the scattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose standing out starkly against his lightly tanned skin. “Mom brought him home over the winter.”

“Do we _need_ a horse?” Clint asked, feeling a little baffled.

“Nah. Mom said he’s a rescue horse; his previous owner was some demented old man who didn’t take proper care of him. So she figured he’s better off living here with us.”

“Where he can just stand around grazing all day and getting fat?’ Clint asked, rising to his feet and dusting off the seat of his jeans, setting his empty mug down on top of the porch railing before descending the stairs to join Cooper in the yard.

“Mom said maybe she’ll teach us how to ride,” Cooper said, looking down and scuffing one foot against the dusty flagstones of the front walkway. “Or you could?” he asked, looking up at Clint hopefully, squinting into the sunlight.

Clint grinned. “Might at least start you off, while I’m here. Geez, Cooper, you tired yet of people telling you how tall you’re getting?” he added, noticing that his son was close to shoulder-height on him now, having put on at least a couple of inches in height since Clint had last been home.

Cooper grinned back and shook his head emphatically, clearly pleased with his recent growth spurt. Clint snorted, and squeezed his shoulder, then turned him around and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the garage. “Go get your chores done. I’ve got my own things to take care of. We’ll think about riding lessons after lunch, maybe.”

Cooper nodded and ran off. Clint watched him go, then retrieved his mug and headed indoors to hunt down his own list of chores, which Laura had thoughtfully left stuck up on the fridge door. There were some fences that needed mending, the old tractor had stopped working _again_  – though she’d added a note beside that, that she’d already given up on waiting for him to fix it, and had called their regular mechanic to come out and take a look at it next week – a crack in the basement foundation that needed patching, some roof repairs on the old barn…

Clint whistled cheerfully as he headed out to the workshop built adjacent to the barn to fetch his tool box and tool belt and get to work. Some people might turn up their nose at doing manual labour, but Clint loved caring for the farm, keeping it in good shape to protect and support his wife and kids, having only to think of the job he was doing rather than politics and lines of sight.

Clint leaned gingerly against the pasture fence, having just finished repairing a stretch of fencing close to it. A simple repair, thankfully, just replacing a rotting post and re-attaching the barbed wire to it. The fence around the pasture itself would be more of a pain in the ass to fix, being a very decorative but not particularly strong post-and-rail fence of dubious age. Clint figured it was more habit and the massive clusters of climbing weeds taking advantage of the uprights that was keeping it together rather than any actual structural integrity left to it. The horse in the pasture was big enough that it could probably walk right through the aged wood without even noticing – it could certainly have jumped right over it with very little effort if it wanted to – but it seemed content to just stand in the shade of the huge half-dead elm out in the middle of the field, head lowered and one hind hoof cocked as it drowsed, tail swishing at irregular intervals to keep off the inevitable flies.

There was a sound of distant barking, and both Clint and the horse turn their heads to watch as Cooper’s big dog raced along the edge of the woodlot the pasture backed onto. The dog stopped, turning and rearing up to rest its forepaws on the top rail of the fence, nose lifted to scent the breeze. Not for the first time Clint wondered what mix of breeds had gone into the mutt; he’d guess there was some husky or wolf-dog in its background, given the particular pattern of the shading of its grey and cream coat and the shape of its head and ears. It looked fierce, but Clint knew that that Fen was actually a giant teddy bear as far as temperament went, his bark far worse than his bite, though Laura claimed he’d be a fierce fighter if anything ever threatened her and the kids.

“Hey, Fen,” Clint called out softly to the dog, grinning as the dog woofed once at him, tail waving madly in its own greeting. Then he shouted louder. “Cooper! Lunch soon!” He couldn’t see his son anywhere, but if the dog was around he knew his son couldn’t be far away; the two were pretty close to inseparable. The dog barked once in response, then turned and scrambled away into the underbrush, presumably chasing off after Cooper, though it might just be a rabbit or squirrel or something similar that had caught its interest.

Clint gathered up the tools he’d used for the fence repair and dropped them into the back of the truck, watched the drowsing horse for a few more minutes, and then drove back over to the house. Fen was stretched out on the ground near the kitchen door, licking something off his muzzle. Must have been a rabbit or a squirrel after all, Clint decided. He bent down to scratch behind Fen’s ear in passing, then headed indoors, washed up, and started putting together some grilled cheese sandwiches and heating a can of tomato soup for his and Cooper’s lunch. It wasn’t long before he heard the smack of the front screen door opening and closing, and his son thundering up the stairs to clean up before lunch.

Cooper wolfed down his sandwich and soup, but wasn’t hungry enough for seconds. Clint was happy enough to eat more than his share of the sandwiches; there’d been too many times over the years, both before and after SHIELD, when he’s had to go without food for one reason or another, so when he had the opportunity to eat his fill, he always took advantage of it. “So did your mother get any tack along with the horse? And what’s its name?” he asked as he wiped out his soup bowl with a corner of sandwich before popping it into his mouth.

“I think there’s a saddle and stuff for him somewhere in the barn,” Cooper said, face scrunching up in thought. “I forget his name. Moccasin or something like that, maybe.”

“Moccasin? Like the snake or the slippers?”

“I have no clue.”

Clint laughed, amused by Cooper’s tone of voice. “Come on, kiddo, let’s get the dishes done and then we can go poke around in the barn and see what we can find. If worse comes to worst, I can rig a rope halter and a saddle blanket, but a proper bridle and saddle would be better.”

Once they’d cleaned up from lunch they headed out to the old barn together. Clint could see that one of the old stalls had been repaired and cleaned up for the horse, the big box stall right by the pasture door. There was a large wooden chest that he didn’t remember seeing before standing by the gate into the stall, its lid and sides covered in fancy interlaced carving. When opened it proved to hold all of the tack needed for the horse. He hauled everything out, and showed Cooper how to check it all over and make sure it was clean and in good condition to use.

Clint stood in the barn door for a couple of minutes, watching the horse ambling around the pasture. “Maybe we better put off riding lessons,” he said after a while. “He seems like a placid enough horse, but an unfamiliar horse, with an inexperienced rider… tell you what, we’ll see if he’ll at least take a bridle first, maybe groom him to get an idea of how he reacts to the two of us, and go from there. I’d rather your mom was home before either of us tried to actually ride him.”

Cooper looked a little disappointed, but nodded agreement. The horse gave Clint a wary look when he approached him with a carrot in one hand and a bridle in the other. It was even bigger up close than Clint had thought when viewing him from a distance; his shoulder was above Clint’s head. He must have some draft horse in his background, Clint guessed. At least he took his bridle easily enough, after which he happily crunched up the carrot, slobbering chewed-up bits of vegetable everywhere while lowering his head to butt lightly against Clint’s chest, drawing a pleased laugh from the man at his apparent friendliness.

“Gross,” was Cooper’s judgement of that.

Moccasin followed along easily enough when Clint led him to the barn. Clint spent most of an hour teaching Cooper how to act around a horse; how to handle him; how to check and clean his hoofs, and groom him. It wasn’t any of it very exciting, but Cooper had a huge grin on his face the entire time so it was definitely a lesson that was being enjoyed. By both boy and horse; Moccasin clearly was in favour of receiving a good brushing, and was just as placid while tied in the barn as he’d been when loose in the pasture. Clint was definitely pleased with how gentle the giant horse seemed to be. Whatever neglect his former owner had given him, it clearly hadn’t ruined the huge stallion’s temperament.

“Have a good day in town?” Clint asked when he came downstairs from showering off the smell of horse to find Laura and Lila were home. He took a seat in the kitchen to socialize with Laura while she made supper.

“An excellent day, yes,” Laura agreed, then dropped a cutting board, a bag of multi-coloured bell peppers, and a sharp kitchen knife onto the table in front of him. “Slice those up for me,” she directed. “I’m making fajitas for supper.”

“Yum,” Clint said, and sliced first the peppers and then a large red onion while Laura stood at the counter making guacamole and pico de gallo from scratch, the two of them working in companionable silence. It was one of the things he loved about spending time at home; how comfortable they were around each other, that neither of them felt any particular need to fill the silence, that just being in each other’s company was enough to make them both happy. Well, at least it made _him_ happy, and he was at least 80% certain it was the same for her, judging by her relaxed posture and frequent smiles.

“Oh, you remember me telling you that Thor was involved in that latest alien mess over in the UK?” he asked after a while. “The one SHIELD couldn’t help with because of all that HYDRA shit going on everwhere?”

Laura paused in her chopping to turn and look questioningly at him. “You did, yes,” she said. “Why?”

“Just that he’s turned up again. I hear he made a brief trip back to Asgard and then showed up in London at Dr Foster’s flat. Or Dr Foster’s mother’s flat or whatever it is. Fuck, for all I know Darcy Lewis has claimed it in the name of science by now. Anyway, Dr Foster and her mentor need to wrap up some things over there, and then he’ll probably be moving into the tower with Tony. Stark’s apparently put together floors for all of us and wants it to be his super secret superhero clubhouse or something.”

Laura grinned. “No girls allowed?” she asked before turning back to her cutting board.

Clint snorted. “With Natasha and Pepper around? Not to mention Darcy; that girl is a firecracker. No, Stark’s not that crazy. It’ll be an equal opportunity clubhouse. Speaking of Natasha, she was thinking of maybe coming by for another visit, after this upcoming mission, if she’s not too busy,” he said as he carried his cutting board over to set down on the counter near the stove.

“Oh? That would be nice,” Laura said. “It’s been a long time since she was last here.”

“She won’t even recognize the kids,” he said, smiling. “They’ve put on inches in height since _I_ was last here, much less the last time she made it out.”

Laura hummed thoughtfully, then paused from stirring the strips of chicken breast in their marinade. “I was thinking… I think it’s time for another.”

“Another visit? Or another kid?” he asked hopefully, tossing a strip of yellow pepper into his mouth and crunching happily on it.

“Another child,” Laura said seriously. “Three seems like a good number to me.”

Clint couldn’t help the huge grin that came over his face. “I have no objection to us having another,” he told her, then moved to take her in his arms and hug her warmly. “Though with my schedule it may take a few tries before we get it right.”

“Not that you have any objection to trying,” Laura said dryly, and bopped him on the nose with a stalk of coriander. “As luck would have it, this visit is at a good point in my cycle. Who knows, maybe we’ll luck out and get it right the first time.”

“ _What do you desire? What do you wish for out of life?” Loki asked from where he was sprawled in the armchair in one corner of his rooms, leg hooked over the arm and foot twitching as if he had too much energy to remain entirely still._

_Clint, sitting cross-legged on the floor nearby, set down the last of the modular arrow shafts he’d been checking for straightness, and leaned back, propping himself up on both hands. “Dunno. What does anyone want… a home, friends, a real family maybe. Kids.”_

_Loki’s eyebrows rose. “You wish a family? How… completely boringly normal.”_

_Clint frowned, and shifted his weight to one hand, scrubbing the other through his hair for a moment. “Depends on your experience of family,” he muttered, almost a mumble, avoiding Loki’s gaze. “I didn’t have a great one, growing up, but now… I dunno. I think I might make an okay dad. Though I’d have to adopt, it’s not like my partner is going to be popping out any Barton babies.”_

_Loki stilled entirely, head cocking slightly to one side, a look of interest flitting briefly across his face. “You would willingly raise children that were not your own?” he asked, his voice a little odd in tone._

“ _Sure. I mean, Barney and I spent some time in the foster care system, after our parents died… we weren’t in care for very long before we ran away, but long enough that I’m pretty damned sure I could provide a better home life for kids than what some foster parents do.” He shuddered, remembering the nightmare of a placement that the second-last family they’d been with had turned out to be. The group home they’d been in afterwards was only any better because at least there the neglect had been more of the benign variety than anything else; too many kids and not enough adults to really care for them anything near the way a real parent would have. And then they’d run away the first moment they could from the family they’d been placed with after that, not wanting to stick around long enough to even learn if the family was semi-decent or another nightmare._

“ _I’d just have to remember everything my asshole father and the different fosters did, and do the opposite,” he said, forcing a smile. Not that what he’d said was all that far from the truth._

“ _Interesting. Perhaps you’ll have a chance at creating such a family, after your service to me is over.”_

“ _Sure… assuming my partner is still alive at the end of all of this,” Clint said, waving one hand in a gesture meant to encompass not just the rooms the two of them were in at present, but the larger facility outside, filled with mercenaries and scientists._

_Loki smirked. “If your partner doesn’t survive, I’m sure I can find you an acceptable replacement.”_

_Clint grimaced. “I don’t think anyone could ever replace my partner,” he stated firmly._

“A boy or girl?” Natasha asked, sitting back in her chair before sipping at the glass of iced mint lemonade Laura had just passed to her, wincing slightly as the movement reminded her of the huge bruise and cracked ribs that were souvenirs of her and Clint’s latest mission.

“I’d like either,” Laura said as she poured a glass for herself.

“Have you thought about names yet?” Natasha asked in a purposefully disinterested tone of voice.

“Natasha if it’s a girl, of course,” Clint called as he made his way down the stairs to join them, having to be extra-careful thanks to his broken ankle and the resultant cast and crutch.

Natasha froze for a moment, shocked and pleased, shocked even further at how happy she felt at the simple words. “And if it’s a boy?” she managed to make herself ask.

“Nathaniel,” Laura said firmly, smiling warmly at her.

“Yeah, we’re agreed that no matter what, it’s being named after Auntie Nat,” Clint said as he manoeuvred his way into the room, pausing in the archway just long enough to beam widely at Natasha. “It’s a middle name we’re having trouble agreeing on.”

“No we’re not,” Laura said placidly, as she filled yet another glass and pushed it toward where Clint was lowering himself down to take a seat beside her. “I’ve told you, since you’ve chosen the first name, I get to choose the second, and it’s going to be Jordan.”

“But we _both_ chose the first name together,” Clint protested. Laura lifted an eyebrow at him and Clint subsided. “Okay, fine, so either Natasha Jordan or Nathaniel Jordan, since Jordan works for either, or were you thinking of something less uni-sex for one or the other?”

“No, Jordan is perfect for either,” Laura said, one hand drifting down to cup over the barely visible rounding of her belly.

“When is he or she due?” Natasha asked, leaning forward to pick over the tray of veggies and dip on the table between them.

“Well, seeing as conception was just before you two left on that _little_ jaunt…” the stress on the word undoubtedly being due to what was supposed to have been a brief mission stretching out for several months instead, “…the due date should be some time in March.”

_Loki slid down the corridor wall to sit on the floor, legs splayed and elbows resting on raised knees.“Sit, rest,” Loki ordered Hawkeye, gesturing vaguely at the floor nearby._

_Clint dropped to sit neatly cross-legged, leaning back against the wall across from Loki, unobtrusively studying him. Loki’s appearance was worrying; he looked tired, Hawkeye found himself thinking. Not just regular tired, but exhausted, maybe even ill. His face was whiter than even his normal pallor, skin pale and damp, hair limp and oily, almost greasy, with dark bags under his hollow eyes. He’d looked worse when he first came through the gateway, but not by very much; at least his eyes looked reasonably sane at the moment, the feral grin he’d sported then currently missing. For just a handful of seconds his face smoothed out into a thousand-yard stare and a thin-lipped, almost blank expression that put Clint in mind of someone trying to avoid frowning. Or maybe screaming._

_Loki finally glanced in Hawkeye’s direction, blank expression sliding smoothly into a brow-raised smirk of amusement. “Tell me about your partner,” he said softly._

_Clint only barely managed not to tense up, feeling his skin crawl in a way that made him wish he could twitch it like a horse shuddering off a fly. He had a partner and a Partner, and he didn’t really want to tell Loki about either of them. But he couldn’t_ not _answer a direct question from his master. Even as he inhaled and opened his mouth, he made his choice. In a fight of any kind – muscles or wit – he’d back Natasha against pretty much anyone or anything. Every. Single. Fucking, Time._

_Natasha versus a god… well, it might be a little closer than usual, but he’d still put his money on Natasha being the one to walk away from it. She could look after herself. She was a survivor._

“ _You want to know about Natasha?” he asked, willing himself not to give away in any way at all – quiver in voice, change in breathing, flick of eyes,_ anything _– that there was a second possible answer to that question._

“ _Yes. Tell me all about her,” Loki said, voice dropping to a low purr, eyes slitting half-shut as if he wasn’t overly concerned about the answer, though there was enough tension in the way he sat, enough attention in the way half-lidded eyes remained fixed on Clint, that the archer was sure that Loki was in fact very interested in whatever he might have to say about her._

“ _It’s a long story,” Clint said._

_Loki lifted one shoulder in a too-casual shrug. “We have time.”_

_Clint nodded, licked his lips once as he gathered his thoughts, already organizing the story in his head, planning out what things to say, what things to intentionally and obviously avoid talking about in order to lure Loki into specific lines of questions, keeping his interest away from any other person of import in Clint’s life. He kept a mental image in his head of a bird fluttering enticingly away through the grass, acting as if one wing was broken, displaying a false weakness to lure a predator away from what the bird wanted to protect. He was positive he could put on a believable enough performance; he’d been taught by a couple of the best, after all, even if it wasn’t his usual role in their team._

There was a storm coming in. Clint closed the last of the upstairs windows – left open all day due to the oppressive pre-thunderstorm heat – and went back downstairs to join Laura and the kids in the front parlour. As fearless as Laura was about almost everything, she had an intense dislike of thunderstorms, which she blamed on a childhood spent in the heart of tornado alley, and liked to have her family close around her when the thankfully infrequent thunderstorms showed up.

It was already getting dark out, looking more like mid-evening than late afternoon, because of the heavy overcast. Lila, who was completely fearless, was in the window seat, alternating between watching the oncoming storm and reading the book lying open in her lap. Cooper, who was only somewhat more sanguine about storms than his mother was, was cocooned in blankets and lying with his head in his mother’s lap while she stroked his hair, soothing both of them.

There was a sudden flash of lightning and booming crack of thunder, close enough together to seem almost as one. All of them jumped, startled, even Clint flinching from the loudness and suddenness of it. There was a muffled roaring sound as the rain finally reached them, going from occasional drops to torrential downpour in just seconds. Lila turned to look out the window just as there was another close strike, the glare turning one side of her face bone-white and casting the other in near-black shadow for a moment.

“It hit the barn!” she exclaimed, turning further and rising to her knees, palms flat against the rain-streaked glass as she tried to get a better look.

“Which is one of the reasons barns have weather vanes,” Clint told her calmly.

“With a grounding wire attached to it, right?” Cooper asked, leaning up on one elbow and craning his head to look in Lila’s direction before looking inquisitively at Clint.

Clint gave the boy an approving nod. “That’s right. Gives the lightning a safe path to the ground and makes it less likely to damage the barn or anything inside it. Same reason there’s a lightning rod on the house and most of the bigger outbuildings.”

Laura didn’t say anything, merely turned to watch the window as well, face set in the expressionless way that meant she was trying not to react to the storm outside.

“Want me to take care of supper while we still have power?” Clint offered, seeing how tense she was. He made mental note to try again to talk her into getting a generator for the farm; her main objection to it being that it would have to be in an outbuilding and would require going outside during a storm to start it up, which she had no interest in doing. They had some old oil lamps, several fireplaces, and a white spirit single burner stove for emergency use that she always said were more than enough to get them through the majority of power outages, so she didn’t see the need for a generator.

Laura nodded, giving him a thin smile. “Please,” she agreed.

He kept it simple, making mac’n’cheese and frying up some hot dogs to go along with it, figuring simple comfort food was the smartest choice. The power went out right as he was draining the macaroni.

“Guess we might as well eat it picnic style,” he called in the direction of the parlour. “Lila, fetch a lantern and the lighter to your mother, Cooper, spread out blankets on the floor.”

“Sure thing, Dad,” Cooper called back, while Lila shouted a simpler “Okay!”.

It was fun, sitting on the floor gathered around the lantern and bowls full of food. Even Laura relaxed and began to smile again as the worst of the storm passed them by, and the kids talked excitedly about some video game they were currently hooked on.

“Where’s Fen?” Clint asked, glancing around. He’d have expected the dog to have shown up to beg for food by now. “I hope you didn’t leave him outside in weather like this?”

Laura shook her head. “He’s around somewhere,” she said. “He doesn’t like storms much more than I do.”

“Probably trying to hide behind the bathtub again,” Lila said, grinning at Cooper.

“That was _once_ ,” Cooper exclaimed, sounding offended on his dog’s behalf.

“He was a lot younger then,” Laura stated calmly, then flinched at another, thankfully more distant lightning strike.

By the time the thunder and lightning had receded to distant flashes and low rumbles, the rain tapering off to a steady but no longer torrential downfall, the two kids were curled up asleep on the rug on front of the unlit fireplace, Clint and Laura sitting on the couch, his arm wrapped comfortingly around her shoulders. He leaned over to sniff her hair and kiss her temple. “My big brave wife, scared of a little thunderstorm,” he teased.

Laura snorted, and lifted her head to give him a mildly dirty look. “I am not scared of storms,” she corrected. “It’s the destruction they bring that I dislike.”

The lights flickered briefly, and then went dark again. A few seconds later the power finally returned, the soft sounds of things powering on again sounding from throughout the house. The sudden light woke the children, the pair of them sitting up and blinking groggily.

“Bed time!” Clint announced cheerfully, helping Laura to her feet, and then herded the kids in the direction of the stairs while she went into the kitchen to check on appliances and reset clocks.

_Loki looked more relaxed than Clint had ever seen him before, leaning back against the wall of the hanger with a look of distracted thought on his face. Clint checked his watch. The quinjet to take them to Germany would be ready to depart soon. That had been a real stroke of luck, Clint having recent knowledge of where one was currently stashed for emergency use, and the still-valid codes to get them into the mothballed facility to steal it._

_Loki finally took note of his presence, and gave him a surprisingly warm smile. “Looking forward to our little outing?”_

_Clint shrugged. “As much as I look forward to anything, sir.”_

_Loki nodded. “It will be an_ interesting _night. I should note that I’m very pleased with your service so far. It is not every mercenary who would have the skills to assist me as aptly as you have.”_

“ _Thank you, sir.”_

 _Loki cocked his head inquisitively to one side. “It still puzzles me that out of anything you could wish for – power, wealth, whatever less savoury reward any mortal might ask after – that the one thing you most desire is a_ family _. Though perhaps that’s because I have found my own experience of… family… to be such a mixed gift.”_

 _Clint shrugged. “Having power just means having responsibility, and I’d rather let someone else worry about the big picture. Money is nice, but as long as I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table, I’m happy enough. Family… well, I told you about what my father was like, and Barney… I suppose they’re about as disappointing a family to me as yours is to you. But_ found _family, or made family, that’s different. That’s the sort of family I want; my sister from another mister, my spouse, a pile of kids, maybe a dog, some nice big house out in the country maybe, a place that’s_ ours _. That’s what would make me happy.”_

_Loki’s mouth twisted in an amused expression. “Such simple wishes, and yet perhaps among the hardest to make come true,” he said, and then looked away, gaze unfocused again. “I had family, once; not just those who name themselves my parents and brother, or the parents who abandoned me at birth, but a lover, a wife, children.”_

“ _Really?” Clint asked, surprised. It was the first time Loki had ever indicated that he had any family beyond the one that he’d abandoned. “What happened to them?”_

 _Loki gave him a look, eyes glittering and mouth parting in a ferocious grin than made goosebumps rise on Clint’s arms and the back of his neck. “Why, the usual fate of those deemed monstrous,” Loki said, straightening up, body going rigid as a look of hatred crossed his face. “They were all taken from me, for one reason or another, and variously imprisoned or placed in servitude, depending on what_ use _Odin All-Father considered them most apt for. I have not seen most of them in long years; centuries, as you would measure time, and the only one I have been allowed to see with any regularity is kept as a voiceless servant.”_

_Clint’s eyes widened. “Shit, sir, that’s… messed up. I dunno. I don’t have anything I can really say to that, except it sucks.”_

“ _Perhaps I begin to understand your wish of a family and a safe place for them after all,” Loki said thoughtfully, and then looked away. “If I’d had a place where I could have hidden my children safely away from those who would harm or enslave them…” He fell silent again, gaze fixed on the floor, though Clint doubted he was even aware of the spalled concrete he was staring at._

“ _All kids deserve a safe place,” Clint said quietly. “Doesn’t matter who their parents are, or who they are.”_

_Loki looked up, giving him a particularly piercing look. “You really mean that,” he said, voice flat with either surprise or disbelief._

“ _Of course I do,” Clint said. “Fuck, I’d have_ killed _for a good family after I ended up in the system. If –_ when _– my partner and I adopt, I’m not going to be insisting on some newborn blue-eyed blond-haired perfect ideal of a kid. I know how bad it can be for the ones who are too old or too messed up or the wrong colour or just_ different _in some way; that was me and most of the kids I was housed with. Those are the sort of kids I’d want to try and rescue from the system; the ones who otherwise are just going to be stuck in it until they age out, and probably age into worse places. Like living on the streets. Or jail. Or even worse than that.”_

_Before their conversation could continue, there was a sharp whistle from the other side of the hanger as their pilot finished his pre-flight checks. Loki turned away, marching in the direction of the open loading ramp, Clint falling in to his accustomed position just behind him, both remaining silent until final checklists before their arrival in Germany._

Clint lay awake, staring up at the ceiling for a while and watching as the room slowly went from the greys of nighttime to the desaturated colours of pre-dawn light. He turned his head to the side, smiling at where Laura lay curled up on her side next to him, dark hair tumbled loosely over her pillow. From this angle he couldn’t see the swell of her pregnant belly or the curve of her breasts, just the long expanse of her back, as smoothly muscular as any man’s from all the hard work she did, living here on her own most of the time as she did. He felt a moment of intense deja vu, only the body he remembered lying next to him had a different shape; broader shoulders, freckled skin, and much shorter, sparser, lighter hair… he blinked, and the feeling went away. It was just Laura, his wife and the mother of his children, whom he’d been waking up next to for years now.

He smiled and turned over onto his own side, shifting closer to spoon up against her back, hand slipping over her side to cup against the curve of her belly. “Morning, beautiful,” he said, dropping a kiss against the nape of her neck as she stirred and made an agreeable sound. “Want me to take care of breakfast?”

“Oh, please do,” Laura said, and laughed. “As much as I am looking forward to this one’s arrival, spending any more time on my feet than I have to is something I will happily avoid.”

Clint grinned, and kissed her again before rolling out of bed. He looked in on the kids on his way down the hallway. Lila was sprawled on her back, one hand curled palm-upwards beside her head. She looked so much like her mother – the same pale skin, never taking a tan or freckling like Cooper’s and Clint’s skin did, the same dark hair, though where Laura’s had a natural wave to it, Lila’s was as straight as if ironed, except when, as now, it was tousled from sleep.

He silently opened the door to Cooper’s room, and froze for a moment as eyes gleaming a chatoyant gold blinked at him from the nest of blankets. He frowned and flicked on the lights, expecting to catch Cooper having snuck Fen into the house for the night, and was mildly surprised to see it was just Cooper himself, squinting now and raising a hand to shield his eyes. Must have just been a weird trick of the light, he thought, dismissing it, and grinned at his son. “I’m gonna make breakfast,” he stage-whispered. “Wanna come help?”

Cooper blinked sleepily at him, then smiled and sat up excitedly. “Can we make waffles? And bacon?”

Clint nodded. “Sure thing, as long as you know where your mother has hidden away the waffle iron.”

Cooper scrambled out of bed, stretching like a cat before hitching up his sleep pants as they threatened to slide downwards. “I know where it is,” he said, and the two headed downstairs together.

_Clint stared silently at Loki, arrow trained unerringly on him as Thor and Steve helped the injured god to his feet, Steve maintaining an implacable grip on him as Thor produced some sort of futuristic gag and manacles, seemingly out of thin air. Thor’s jaw was set in a grim expression as he snapped the cuffs shut around his brother’s wrists. Loki ignored the two men, merely tossing his mussed hair back out of his face and giving Clint – and Natasha, standing beside him – one of those feral grins of his._

“ _Thank you for your exemplary service, Clinton,” he said, voice oddly formal despite the crazed gleam in his eyes. “I shall of course see to it that you’re suitably rewarded for it.”_

_Tony spun around from where he was standing at the bar, and aimed his repulsors at Loki, while Steve’s jaw set in an offended expression, Natasha moving a half-step forward and to the side, positioning herself between Loki and Clint. Even Bruce, wrapped in a blanket and still recovering from his Hulk-out, looked up and half-squinted, half-glared at Loki._

_Thor’s reaction was both more direct and violent, a ferocious scowl crossing his face as he clouted the side of Loki’s head with the back of one meaty fist; not with any real force, but capturing Loki’s immediate and angered attention. “Leave off your threats, brother,” Thor snapped._

“ _It is no threat, merely my assurance that I will fulfil my promises to him,” Loki said, in a deliberately airy tone, a look of wide-eyed false innocence on his face._

“ _As you are unable to curb your tongue, perhaps it is good that our father equipped me to curb it for you,” Thor said darkly, shook out the gag, and lifted it toward Loki’s face. Loki’s eyes widened and he flinched minutely, but then froze and stood motionless as his brother muzzled him, the only sign of his emotion the tenseness of his body and the cold look in his eyes._

_Thor turned to Clint, his shoulders slumping and a look of pained regret on his face. “I am sorry for all you have suffered at my brother’s hands, my friend. I promise that you shall be safe from any retribution he might seek; once he has been returned to Asgard, I think it will be many long years before he is free again, and that long as the Aesir measure the passage time.”_

_Clint managed a small nod of acknowledgement, slacking off the draw now that Loki had been secured. “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled, then turned to Natasha, fingers twitching in their ‘get me the fuck out of here’ signal as he ran one hand through his sweat-dampened hair in what looked like nothing more than a nervous gesture. She acknowledged it with a slight flicker of her gaze, then turned away to deal with the others. For the first time in hours – days – he was able to relax a little, knowing that she would look after him while he needed it._

_Fuck but he was tired. Tired enough that his brain felt full of fuzz, though some of that was probably a combination of the aftereffects of being under Loki’s control, plus the violent physical means that Natasha had employed in breaking him free; he wouldn’t be surprised if he had a concussion, not that it’d be the first time he’d basically walked one off._

_He wanted massive amounts of food, a shower, clean clothes, and a soft bed. Though right now he’d settle for a quite corner of reasonably non-lumpy floor to curl up on. Though with the clusterfuck this all had been ever since back at the Phoenix base, he was willing to bet that what he most likely had in his immediate future was being locked up, undergoing a metric shit-ton of interrogations-slash-debriefings, and a lot of psyche evals. Hopefully no actual charges; it wasn’t like any of this had been_ his _idea._

_Natasha stepped closer, touching his arm and beginning to lead him away. He glanced one last time in Loki’s direction, meeting his cool gaze before turning his back on him and walking away._

_Loki was someone else’s problem now, and no longer Clint’s master. Just another nightmare to add his ever-growing collection of them._

It was a very nervous Clint who landed the quinjet near the farmhouse. Apart from Natasha, this was the first time any of the team were going to learn about his family, his closest held and most fiercely guarded secret.

He glanced back at the others, and smiled fondly at Natasha, remembering the first time she had met Laura, not long after the Battle of New York. The two of them had started out as tense as two strange cats forced to share a single room, to the point where he’d actually been a little worried that Natasha might attack his wife. Or maybe vice versa; Laura wasn’t exactly a fainting flower despite her lack of martial training. But then Laura had sent him off with the kids while she and Natasha sat down and talked, and by the time they got back from taking a trip into town to pick up groceries – especially ice cream – the two had somehow become fast friends. Natasha had been a semi-regular guest to the house ever since.

But this, bringing the whole team to the farmhouse – this was different. This was exposing a part of his life that he’d wanted to keep entirely separate from his job as an Avenger, or at least as separate from it as it was possible to be. But since the fall of SHIELD, safehouses were sparse on the ground, and while he hated to reveal this one, it was the safest place he could think of for all of them. It had never been on the books in any way, shape, or form outside of the heads of himself, Natasha and Fury, and therefor was the only safehouse he personally knew of that hadn’t been burnt when Natasha had dumped SHIELD’s files onto the wilds of the internet.

He and Nat led the way across the fields and up the road to the house, the rest following along behind. He could hear Thor’s questioning voice, and Tony muttering something in reply, but was too focused on seeing his wife again for the first time in weeks to really pay any attention to them. As soon they were indoors he called out for Laura, and couldn’t stop himself from grinning happily as she came into the room, clearly pleased to see him. Introductions after that were pretty simple; the Avengers might never had met Laura before – apart from Nat, of course – but Laura knew all of them by name and face, and probably a bit more about them than was strictly covered by the security rating Fury had given her. His grin widened as he stood with one arm around her waist, taking in the varied reactions of his friends.

Not that he paid attention to that for very long, as Cooper and Lila came rushing down the stairs to see him. Cooper was excited to meet the Avengers, while Lila of course cared only for greeting her beloved Auntie Nat at first. Clint was busy laughing at Tony for thinking Laura and the kids were agents of some kind when he noticed Lila approaching Thor, frowning up at him with an unhappy expression on her face. Then Thor suddenly turned away and hurried out of the house, Steve chasing after him. Lila turned her attention back to her Auntie Nat.

Steve came back in a couple minutes later before disappearing again; Thor did not. Well, at least it made figuring out room arrangements for the night one body easier. Or at least it did until Fury put in an appearance as well.

_It was with great relief that Clint stepped out the doors of the New York headquarters, after two months of debriefing and psyche evals and therapy. It had been a rough road, knowing what he’d done while under Loki’s control, knowing what Loki and the mercenaries he’d hired to help him had done as well. So many SHIELD agents injured, or dead, because of a trickster god and a mind-controlling staff._

_The worst was knowing that Phil had died. They’d been close for so long, not just handler and asset – or assets, once you counted in Natasha, the third member of Strike Team Delta – but also partners. It was like missing a limb; he wouldn’t have Coulson’s voice in his ear any more, guiding him through missions. No more shared meals in overseas safehouses, no more dry deadpan humour and bad coffee and convenience store donuts. Just… a hole in his life, where Phil used to be._

_But he still had a job to do, and a new team to belong to, and friends._

_More importantly – he still had his family. His wife, Laura, and their two kids, their hope for more later. It would be good to head out west to the farmstead for a while and see them again; it had been too long since he’d last been home._

_A long flight and an even longer drive later saw him turning up a road toward a white painted farmhouse with green trim, backed by a ramshackle old red barn and a scattering of outbuildings of various ages. It felt like the first time he’d ever been there, like he was seeing it through new eyes, though he knew he’d been here many times over the years since first joining SHIELD. Surviving recent events made it all the more precious to him._

_The later afternoon sun was warm on his skin as he stepped out of the rental truck, a grin already crossing his face as Laura opened the screen door and stood there, leaning against the door jamb and smiling warmly back at him._

“ _Good to see you again, Clint,” she said._

“ _Good to see you again too, babe,” he said, as he dragged his bag out from in back of the seat, slinging it over one shoulder and then taking the steps two at a time, resting his hands on either side of Laura’s waist as he bent down to kiss her. “I missed you.”_

_She smiled. “I missed you too,” she said, resting on hands on his shoulders and squeezing them reassuringly, then kissed him again._

“Holy shit, sir, I didn’t… I don’t… _fuck_ , sir, I thought you died in New York!” Clint exclaimed, and barely restrained himself from hugging the older man.

Coulson smiled thinly, looking amused. “I actually did, but it didn’t take. I’m sorry it’s been so long since we were last in contact… I was recuperating for months, and then I had some lingering memory problems afterwards. And then, well… HYDRA. Aliens. Tony Stark’s bright ideas. Inhumans.”

Clint laughed, and grinned happily at Coulson. “Yeah, fucking Tony Stark. And Bruce, the great green enabler that he is. _Shit_ but it’s good to see you again, sir. I’ll have to have you out to the house to meet Laura and the kids… I’m always talking her ear off about you, I’m sure she’d love to actually meet you now that it turns out you’re not dead after all.”

Coulson stilled, brow creasing slightly. “Laura?” he asked cautiously.

“Oh, damn, that’s right, you weren’t ever read in on that… my wife. Fury helped me to set up an unofficial safehouse, and kept it, Laura, and our kids off the books.”

“He did,” Coulson said, voice flat enough that it was more of a statement than a question. He blinked rapidly. “Kids? Sounds like you’ve been busy since New York.”

“What? Oh, no no no, Laura and I have been married since before I joined SHIELD. Our oldest is a pre-teen now. We have two boys and a girl, the youngest was just born a few months ago. Cooper Francis, Lila Helen, and Nathaniel Pietro Jordan, in order by age. Also a dog, a horse, and assorted small livestock. Anyway, the homestead is not such a secret anymore, all the Avengers ended up hiding out there during the mess with Ultron, so I don’t see any reason not to bring you home to meet my wife and spawn too.”

Coulson smiled again, head cocking a little to one side as his hand rose to smooth down his tie. “I’d be very interested in meeting your family,” he agreed, and his smile widened, deep crowsfeet forming at the corners of his eyes. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, I went there. Was thinking one day of how out-of-nowhere that whole Barton's farm sequence in Age of Ultron was and decided it was obviously all Loki's doing. The way little Helen Barton goes and has a stare-down with Thor right before he flees also just fits in so well with the whole idea.
> 
> Going with 'implied dub-con' since all Loki's children are pre-existing to his meeting Clint, and any sex/pregnancies are as likely to be illusion and memory manipulation rather than physical actuality. So readers' choice as to whether Clint and Lauki ever did anything more strenuous than cuddles and kissing.
> 
> Laura Barton = Loki Laufeyson  
> Cooper = Cooper 'Francis' Barton = Fenris, Fen  
> Lila = Lila 'Helen' Barton = Hel  
> Nate = Nathaniel Pietro 'Jordan' Barton = Jörmungandr (and yeah, I know it's pronounced more like 'your mun' than Jordan but close enough for fanfic)  
> Moccasin = Sleipnir (which translates to slipper)


End file.
